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Monday was a bad day. Because Sunday I went out with a pretty girl. She didn’t like me. Tame date at the duck pond; I’m trying to not get girls sauced and rawdog them on our first meeting. I’m old now. I want a wife. I spread out my blanket and she sat turned slightly away from me and I knew. I learned about girls’ body language cues from PUA message boards. I used to read that stuff all the time. Had to leave because of the politics. Misogynists are wrong about everything, except women.

She didn’t like me and she took off. I spent a few minutes on Tinder desperately trying to call in the second string. I failed. When something like this happens I start to think I’m a malodorous mutant who will die alone of some crippling illness. In this case, early onset Alzheimer’s since that Julianne Moore trailer came out. That lasted 36 hours.

Tuesday was a good day. I got fired. My company merged with another company, or bought some piece of them, or they bought some piece of us. That meant they needed to cut a bunch of people. One of them was my boss. That meant another one was me.Continue reading →

I can’t fucking do it anymore. Used to sit with craigslist in one tab, OKCupid in another. Apply for jobs, apply for pussy. It worked ’cause it was half fun. Now it’s just the jobs. Secretarial shit. Every good one is fake; they’re recruiting agencies. They call and you go in in your bad suit and take a test. How fast can you type. How good are you at Powerpoint. Anyone who uses Powerpoint should be killed. Meet a gray woman who tells you tone down your resume. Take off the executive stuff. Places don’t hire if they think you want a future.

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Get to the fucking robots already. There is no job in the world now that is useful. Every place is selling fake shit that people don’t need. Or they’re a fake middleman who leeches off some other company that also does nothing. Finance. Law. Insurance. There is one real industry: protect and expand rich people’s inherited money. The rest, parasites on parasites.

You know those Staples commercials where they show corporate board meetings. Where it’s clear that the people who made the commercial never had a job. That’s what my office looks like. Dark veneered wood. Gray file cabinets. A conference room where dumb platitudes are projected in Microsoft Powerpoint. I am wearing a bad suit. Other men in bad suits walk behind me chattering. They say numbers and facts about money into phones. They pause to listen to other numbers and facts about money. I look at a monitor. On it is a white spreadsheet with information about money. I look for the cell that tells me about someone’s money. Find it. I pick up a phone with many lights and buttons. Push numbers. Ask a secretary for the person with money. If he– and it’s always he– if he picks up I talk to him about his money. I do this for most of the day, most days, so my boss who is rich can be more rich. His office has golf trophies and two big windows. My office only has one window. But it overlooks a golf course. This is desirable. I have a view of a water hazard. It pleases me when the hazard disrupts a golf game. They look like ants from my window but I can read their frustration. Life is only good when someone has it worse.

Credit-wrecking broke. Now I have to get a real job. I got hooked up with a recruiting agency. They represent “cool” companies. You sound “cool” if you work there. Squinting into spreadsheets just like the Fonz. Silicon Valley related shit, which means they pay you a fuckload of money to answer a phone. 65 grand a year plus OT, which is a king’s ransom to me. I’d be wearing suits made of gold and smoking fine cigars. For me fast living is buying two pints in a bar at four bucks a pop instead of pounding a pint of hobo brandy outside and then drinking water. Fast living is getting the brakes fixed on the car, instead of hoping you don’t have to stop fast. Fast living is not waiting until you’re getting five collection calls a day from Verizon, five collection calls a day from Time Warner. A text from Progressive saying “We’re sorry you decided not to stay with us.” You’re meant to say “WAIT! I NEVER MEANT TO LEAVE YOU, HERE’S MONEY!” This is Verizon Wireless with important information regarding a change to your account. Market researched words. Words that made the most lab monkeys press the button. Important information regarding a change to your account: give us money. Continue reading →

AAAAHHH money money money money money. Relax. You have enough to pay the credit card bill. OKCupid coaching will pay enough to register the car. Unemployment will come through. You can bill work for leads. Everything will be fine. Except it won’t because you have no god damn money. You have no god damn money. Your credit is destroyed and there is no way you will get a job, ever. Ever. You worked beneath your talents for eight years and this is what it got you. Nothing. You saved nothing, learned nothing. You were miserable for nothing. Now you are miserable for less than nothing.

Let me say this again: there are no jobs out there. Back in Spring when I didn’t want to work, I still dutifully applied. I applied for jobs for which I am fully qualified, overqualified. I took care on my resume and cover letter. I have hired people; I know to keep it short. Nothing. I had one interview, a group interview. A Beverly Hills residential Realtor™, a white man the color of an Irish Setter, made 20 of us complete 2 hours worth of tasks that simulated being his assistant. Other than that it was finance scams. One interview– no, one group bake-off– for over a hundred resumes. And I’m good. Continue reading →

This woman is never going to come through with the money. The check with the funds was returned to her client, she says. It was money to turn my apartment into a Home Office. Insufficient address. It will be re-sent to me today by UPS or Fedex. The sufficient address was on my resume. The sufficient address was presented clearly in the body of an email. But the check was returned. How long until they ask for my bank account. I give it two days. I know you prefer to be paid by check. But in the interest of time can we send a Western Union money transfer. Can we wire it directly to your account. We will need your routing number, account number, online banking password, and Social Security number. Her English is out of Google Translate. She is in Thailand for eight weeks teaching a seminar. She is a portrait photographer. I am unaware of a market for eight week portrait photography seminars in Thailand, but– what if. She offered me the job. The unemployment claim form says: did you REFUSE any work? Continue reading →

I’m writing to apply for the (TITLE GOES HERE) position you posted on Craigslist. Per your request, below you will find a detailed cover letter. My resume is also attached.

Or rather, a .pdf of a medium-resolution color portrait of my scrotum is attached, entitled “Delicious Tacos Resume.” Taken during the recent heat wave. Note the varicose veins. Like the back of your eyelids when you blink after lightning. The hairs, uniformly white. Wiry. I trim vigilantly but the brain coral contours of the human sac ensure that I’ll have missed a few. They grow to inordinate lengths. Form elaborate kinks and curls. Take on lint. Chunks of skin. Brown and pink wads stuck to them, hideously dangling. I have the balls of a one hundred twenty year old man, in other words. But rest assured I am of prime working age. Continue reading →